Week 1 (reset): W E S T W A R D, pt 2

(or, a writer boi finally hits water)

i did a sexy beach photoshoot with the van

SPOKANE (IS SUPPOSED TO BE A HELLHOLE BUT IS ACTUALLY LOVELY)

So, I have basically three ‘favorite writers’. Two of them write books- Neal Stephenson and Stephen King- but the third writes a tri-weekly online comic strip called ‘Penny Arcade’ and an associated ‘blog’ of sorts that goes along with it. The two dudes that started it (Jerry Holkins is the writer, Mike Krailinuk is the artist) have been doing it three times a week since 1998, and I’ve been following it since the early 2000’s.

They also got the idea one day to get their friends and fans of the comic strip and video games in particular together to hang out in an expo center- and the PAX series of enormous gaming conventions was born. They also were livestreaming D&D campaigns long before Critical Role ever thought to do it, run one of the most successful charities in the world, and all-round have changed millions and millions of lives. But I already just did a post where I talk gushingly about things I like- I’ll stop. But there is a point!

Jerry writes a little ‘blog’ that goes along with the comic- three times a week- and sometimes it’s a few sentences and sometimes it’s half a novel. But he’s one of the most interesting, thoughtful, wise, funny word-ninjas to ever put fingers on keys, and it’s hilarious to me that he’s mostly known for a comic strip and a gaming convention.

Anyway! The point! He lives in Seattle (where I am) and loves to use his hometown of Spokane as a punching bag- check this out, and this and this- and so since the early 2000’s I’ve had this view of Spokane as a kind of dirty, twitching bridge-troll of a city, an eldritch horrorfest weeping with sores and daemonic pustules. (And now I’m writing like Jerry, lol). Well, friends, I’m here to tell you that I have been lied to.

that parking garage was so freakin cool

I have a little game I play with the cities and towns I drive through called ‘How Long Could I Live Here (Before I Got Bored)’. Duluth? Two weeks. Bemidji? Hm… Maybe a month. Minot I could probably do three or four months in; that brewery alone would keep me occupied for a while.

But Spokane? They have a bar called the ‘Cease & Desist Book Club’. A cocktail bar. They got a kickass bookstore called Auntie’s (didn’t have my book, but I’ll forgive them) that has an adjoining game store called Uncle’s. They have a cable car that goes from the boardwalk down into a ravine! I could do a year there. Loved it. High Recommend.

Take that, Jerry!

the first glimpse of the pacific was a bit anticlimactic

ROUTE 2 FROM SPOKANE TO SEATTLE IS GAAAHHHHHH

Driving through Washington State on Route 2 was easily the most beautiful thing I’ve seen on this trip- maybe seen ever- so, of course, I took almost no photos of it. Plenty of video! But there’s so many bugs on the goddamn windshield it’s mostly unusable. I also drove the whole thing in one monster day and was getting pretty tired by that point, so it will live in my memory as some kind of beautiful smear, a confusing welter of gorgeousness wiped across my mind.

Washington is a fun state to drive through. It starts out with sweeping golden plains and hills, then transitions into what they call the ‘desert’, a sort of brown barren wind-swept vista littered with big rocks and is incredibly beautiful, and then you snap your fingers and you’re in the Cascades, which are a crazy pretty mountain range, and then you’re coming down out of those and into fruit tree country on the furthest limits of the Peugot Sound, and then you slam into the Pacific quite unceremoniously in a town called Everett, a bit north of Seattle. As you can see above, my first view of the Pacific was through a chain-link fence and past a bunch of industrial shipyard equipment- not the most romantic sighting in the world.

But that was okay. Because, you see, I had formulated a plan.

the bridge to the Olympic Peninsula

I DON’T GO OFTEN, BUT WHEN I GO, I TRY TO GO HARD

I mean, this is already spoiled at the beginning of the previous post, so I don’t know why I’m trying to crow about it here. A constant, almost crippling need for approval? Like I’m a machine that runs on back-pats? That sounds kinda right, actually. Anyways:

It wasn’t always the plan to go THE FURTHEST WEST POSSIBLE. But I’d made pretty good time across the country, and now had a few days before I had to be in Seattle for the big book convention. And, as noted, my first view of the Pacific was… underwhelming. And is the Peguot Sound (stunningly beautiful as it is) really the Pacific? I started to ask myself; am I really West? I have people I have to answer to now; my Patrons and Subscribers have demands of me! I told them WEST, was I really going to be satisfied with SORT OF WEST?

No. Fuck no. I did a ton of exhaustive research (a quick google, by the side of the road) and determined that there was a little town called Cape Neah on the Olympic Peninsula that was about as far as you could go west (in a van). I had the time for it, I had the gas for it, I had wheels under my feet, a fire in my heart, and shareholders (you) to appease.

I used to say that I’d do just about anything if it would make for a good story; now I’m saying that I’ll do just about anything for a decent blog post. Not that driving another couple days to see the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen was a huge burden, mind you.

And… I got to knock something off my bucket list. A little town called Port Townsend. What’s special about Port Townsend, you ask?

Well, guess what they make there? Yeah, fuckers. WOODEN BOATS.

this is where Leo built the Tally Ho! If you don't know wtf I'm talking about, it's because you rightly skipped a post where I gushed about wooden boats for ten thousand words!

PORT MOTHERFUCKIN’ TOWNSEND

Y’all… just let me gush. If you read the way-too-long post about my influences, you know how cool it was for me to get to see this place. If you didn’t, I’ll catch you up as quick as humanly possible:

I’m obsessed with wooden boats because of a youtube series called Sampson Boat Co where a dude named Leo rebuilt a famous wooden yacht from the keel up, and he did it mostly in a cool little boat-building town called Port Townsend, and I literally squealed with delight when I realized my road would go right past it.

Got it? Good. I’m pretty sure that one of those buildings is where Leo (and crew) did the work I was so fascinated by during the Dark Years. Getting to walk through the places I’d been watching on video for literal years, daydreaming of someday getting to visit… It was awesome. Maybe not quite as awesome as it would have been if the Tally Ho was still being built there, but it was still awesome. I’ll see that boat someday.

Shit. It’s actually in San Francisco right now, and if I drop what I’m doing and…

No. I ain’t done with the Pacific Northwest quite yet. But that’s a story for another post! In any case, this was genuinely a highlight of a trip that was almost all highlights.

no big just giant rocks stickin' out of the ocean

THE COAST ROAD

This was also one of my favorite parts of this trip- are you noticing a theme, here? But driving up the coast of the Olympic Peninsula is a rare treat. It’s a coastal road that really- and I mean really- hugs the coast; all the way out of the Peugot Sound and into the Pacific. I also hit it just right; The sun was sloping through the trees, I had just enough time to get to Cape Flattery, the temperature was like seventy-two degrees on the nose, cool pacific breezes whispering through the van…

It was a nice counterpoint to baking alive in Walmart parking lots in Cleveland, is what I’m saying. (Also, Cleveland is clearly my version of Jerry’s Spokane: It’s mine to abuse but it’s quite a lovely town, and doesn’t deserve the way I talk about it.)

But it also felt like an ending; once I hit Cape Flattery, I would have done it. I would be as West as you could go, and then… And then?

A whole year of traveling in the van would start. Probably way fewer mad dashes across the country (the gas that ate up was unbelievable) and a lot more leisurely poking along, writing and taking things WAY easier than I had the last three months. A more calm, peaceful, steady sort of adventure.

(This, we will come to see, was a hilarious and almost cruelly incorrect assumption, but that’s a story for the NEXT blog.)

But still, it was an incredibly wholesome feeling, driving those last few miles up that gorgeous coast, looking back not only at the crazy ten days of driving I’d just done, but at the two months of craziness before that. I had a chance to feel the fact that, six months ago, I had a wild idea to try to make a change in my life and crawl out of a hole, and now I was here. For better or worse, I was doing it, and just then? In that moment?

It was for the better.

just too damn pretty. and no i'm not talking about those flip-flops, you perverts

CAPE FLATTERY (IS THE PRETTIEST PLACE I’VE SEEN)

I may well see more beautiful things than Cape Flattery before this year is over- I hope I do. But right now, with the memories fresh, that seems impossible.

It’s not even that long of a hike, out to the promontory; you drive almost all the way up to it. Maybe a mile or two? I did it in flip-flops, if that tells you anything. But man, it’s gorgeous.

Did I experience a profound- very nearly spiritual sense of calm and peace, walking through those trees towards the cliffs and water? Yes I did. Did I feel- for the briefest moment- that most wondrous of feelings, the feeling that things were going to be okay? I sure did. Wasn’t even all that brief.

I won’t go on; you get it. Catharsis, quiet happiness, a short respite from the relentless march of conflicting directives banging around in this funhouse asylum I call a brain. It was damn nice, and I think I will probably remember it until my dying day.

And if that doesn’t pay the price of admission, folks, I don’t know what does.

I’m getting the ‘email too long’ warning (I don’t think it likes all these pictures) so I’ll leave you with a little bit of pretty for your eyeballs. The song is something I recorded for one of my previous failed attempts at doing a year-long project- the one where I was going to record a new song every week. But this is a very old, very beloved song about someone leaving town called Fare Thee Well, and I thought it quite fitting.

Though if my squawking annoys you, just turn the volume down and hum ‘Go West’ by the Pet Shop Boys. That was the other option.

(Also I know, I know, I KNOW. There were so many goddamn bugs!)

Glad you came along on the ride; I doubt your having as much fun as I am, but you probably are experiencing less Walmart parking lots and high-decibel bird sex, so perhaps it evens out. Thank you for reading, thank you for supporting.

Under the arm-twisting duress of my friends, I’ll leave a couple options here to support the journey that don’t involve a paid subscription- if you’d like to drop me a gallon of gas, a coffee, or a beer but don’t want to have to do it every goddamn week, here you go. It is much appreciated but never necessary; I’m just glad you’re here.

https://buymeacoffee.com/ltmdy1qrrs // Venmo:@benjaminliar

(P.S. I’m still getting the ‘post too long for email’ error but it’s plainly not- I’m gonna hit publish anyways and if any of you can’t read the end of it or have problems, please let me know. Tanks!)